


Partner

by LynyrdLionheart



Series: I Am Iron Man's Daughter [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen, It's Carenzo BroTP, with mentions of Klaroline and Loki/Caroline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 00:56:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1490794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynyrdLionheart/pseuds/LynyrdLionheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caroline goes to Mystic Falls for a visit.  She comes home with a Partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Partner

**Author's Note:**

> This follows "I am Iron Man('s Daughter)" and "0-8-4". I love Carenzo, romantically or as a BroTP, so I had to include him in this AU. Their relationship with be friendship in this story, though, as she doesn't need more man problems. She already has Klaus and Loki issues.

                She had returned to Mystic Falls for a visit.

                Somehow, and she still wasn’t sure how it had happened, she left with a partner.

                His name was Enzo. He was a friend of Damon’s – a term she used loosely because, really, Damon and _friend_ didn’t belong in the same sentence together, and somehow he had decided that she needed a partner on whatever it was she did outside of her small, sad town. His words, not hers.

                Although she did agree with him – Mystic Falls _was_ sad and small, and never changing. Elena was still torn between Damon and Stefan, everyone was still sacrificing themselves to keep her alive, and it was still always everyone else who suffered so Elena wouldn’t.

                Caroline didn’t mind suffering for a good cause, but she was past risking her life for someone else’s. If she was putting her life on the line, it would be for the world or nothing.

                “I don’t get why you don’t come back, Caroline. This is your home. You belong with us.”

                Caroline wanted to roll her eyes, because Elena gave this speech every single time she came home, as if the brunette couldn’t understand someone wanting something more than to be her friend. Caroline had lots of friends, both in Mystic Falls and amongst the other SHIELD agents, but she didn’t let them determine what she did with her life. That wasn’t what friends did, after all.

                “This is my hometown, Elena. The point of growing up is that you _leave_ your hometown. You find your own place in the world. I’ve done that, and I’m happy. I’m sorry that you don’t understand that.”

                “Did I do something to make you mad? Is it because Katherine told Tyler about you and Klaus… because this isn’t like you! To just abandon us!”

                “I’m not abandoning you, Elena,” Caroline replied, closing her duffle bag and hanging it over her shoulder. “I’m growing up. I pity you, that you can’t do the same.”

                Elena gaped at that, because while she was used to people pitying her – poor little orphan who lost all her parental figures and her brother (even if he came back) – she wasn’t used to them pitying her because she lacked maturity. Elena was wise beyond her years, the girl every parent wished their child could emulate, because Elena was all that was good and kind and loyal.

                And now Caroline looked at her with the look of an outsider who saw all the flaws and Elena felt like she was looking at a stranger. She remained behind, and Caroline left, hugging her mom and walking out to her car, a bright red convertible her dad had given her as a gift when she graduated from the Academy.

                Enzo leaned against the shiny side.

                When they first met, sparks had flown. Caroline had rolled her eyes at his charm and flirtation, and he had found her disdain intriguing. Somewhere along the way, in the month Caroline had been home, they had formed an odd friendship, a sort of kinship where they could sit as the outsiders of the group and laugh at the melodrama occurring within, knowing that they were free to leave at any point.

                “What are you doing here?” Caroline demanded, tossing her duffel into the trunk and raising a brow at Enzo.

                “What do you think? I’m coming with you. Mystic Falls bores me, and now that you’re leaving, so is the only interesting thing that’s happened. So I decided to tag along.”

                “Or not,” Caroline replied. “I have a job I have to get back to. I’m not a nomad wandering aimlessly, Enzo. I have a place in the world.”

                “Then take me, too. I could use a place in the world. I’ve been adrift since I left Augustine.”

                Caroline thought to say no and drive away, back to her apartment and her missions from Nick Fury. Back to her training under Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow, and weekends off spent with her dad, Tony Stark, in New York, reforging the relationship that had been damaged first by his neglect, then by her little vampire secret.

                But she had been Enzo before. Adrift in Mystic Falls, not quite fitting in, but not knowing where else to go, either. She had found her place with SHIELD, and how could she begrudge another the opportunity to as well?

                “Can you shoot a gun?” she asked, getting into the driver’s seat.

                “Point it and pull, seems simple enough,” Enzo replied, hopping in next to her.

                “Oh, young Padawan, you have so much to learn.”

SHIELD

                Vampires had been a revelation to SHIELD. One that Nicky Fury wasn’t entirely pleased to hear about. Learning in the midst of an alien invasion that all the creatures that go bump in the night are real? Not exactly a wonderful experience. The sting of knowing those beings existed right under his nose was soothed somewhat by their newest recruit.

                Caroline Forbes. Only daughter of Tony Stark and only vampire recruit of SHIELD. She knew the weaknesses and strengths of her species, and though Fury was positive the girl wasn’t telling them everything, she had shown herself to be an incredible asset. With improved senses and incredible healing capabilities, the girl was on the fast track to becoming an agent even Natasha Romanov and Clint Barton would hesitate to take on on their own.

                But she _was_ Tony Stark’s daughter, which meant she wasn’t without her faults. Like a difficulty obeying orders she didn’t agree with. Or a complete disregard for the rules by which SHIELD was ruled.

                “You can’t just bring a friend on board because he was bored by small town life.”

                “He could be an ass-”

                “You have to obey commands, Forbes. You have to follow protocol. That’s what makes a good Agent.”

                “That’s what makes an average agent and you know it!” Caroline burst back, her hands landing on her hips. “The best agents – the Natashas and Bartons of SHIELD – know when to obey and when to discard rules. They make judgement calls. Well, I made a judgement call. Enzo is a vampire, Sir. You can’t deny that I’ve been an excellent asset, and he’s even older than I am. That means he’s even _stronger_.”

                The vampire, _Enzo_ , in question was looking around the command centre with an impressed expression on his face. When Barton had landed on board the Helicarrier with Caroline and her companion in tow, Fury had known as soon as he saw the archer’s smug expression that Caroline had done something he wouldn’t like. Seeing her dark haired companion had proven his suspicions right.

                Barton had yet to really forgive Caroline for feeding on him when he’d been under the mind control of Loki. Though he’d taken her on as a student – the girl had shown impressive aptitude for any weapon that could be thrown or shot – he still got a twisted amusement out of seeing her get hell from the Director of SHIELD.

                “I told her you wouldn’t like it, Sir,” Barton interjected with a smirk to Caroline. “She wouldn’t listen.”

                “Oh, I’ll get to you and how you should have never brought that man here in a moment, Barton. Don’t worry about that.”

                Fury’s words made Barton’s smirk fade, and Caroline shot him one of her own, a smug expression that was so reminiscent of the one Stark wore too often that it made Fury wonder, once again, what he had been thinking to hire the man’s daughter.

                “Look, Director, just talk to him. If you don’t think there’s potential, then send him back. He won’t be telling anyone. As far as the world is concerned, Enzo doesn’t exist. He’s spent the last seventy odd years as a test subject for an anti-vampire society. He knows how to hold up under torture.”

                That intrigued Fury. Of all the training they did, the ability to withstand torture was what broke the most agents. Lots of people could dish out pain, but receiving it themselves? Not so much.

                “He will be your responsibility.”

                “What?” Caroline asked, eyes widening with surprise.

                “He’ll train with you. You will teach the ground rules, the protocol. You’ll assist in his training. He fucks up? That will be on you, Agent Forbes. He succeeds? You will share that success. You will be in each other’s pockets, so congratulations. You brought yourself in a partner.”

                “What?” Caroline repeated, and Fury almost chuckled, because making Caroline speechless was a rare achievement, and damn if he didn’t love to do it.

                “He said that I’m your partner,” Enzo cut in, rejoining them with a smirk, and Fury was once again impressed with just how good the vampire senses were. “This should be fun, Blondie.”

                And when the two vampires left, one with a scowl to show the other to his room, Fury allowed himself a self-indulgent chuckle.         

                This should be fun, indeed.

SHIELD

                “You do realize that any punishment you receive is punishment I receive as well.”

                That was the first thing Natasha said to her after they watched Enzo’s first attempts at shooting a gun. Because Enzo? Quite possibly the worst marksman either of them had ever seen.

                “You’ve just been spoiled,” Caroline replied weakly as they stood and looked at the target – bullet holes riddled the thing almost everywhere _but_ the body Enzo should have been aiming for. “Because I’m such a natural talent. I thought you said you knew how to shoot a gun.”

                “And my response of aim and pull the trigger didn’t make you wonder if I had any experience at all?” Enzo retorted dryly. “You do remember that I’ve spent the last seventy years in the tender care of the Augustine Society, don’t you, Gorgeous? They weren’t exactly keen to give their vampire subjects weapons.”

                “We should send you to the Academy,” Natasha replied. “Let you get trained in the basics and _then_ train you. Like I said, Caroline, your punishment is mine.”

                Both women looked at Enzo who looked back with raised brows.

                “Maybe he’ll be better with hand-to-hand? I mean, he does have the vampire instincts.”

                He wasn’t.

                Oh, he had the speed and the strength that meant he would be able to overpower his opponents easily enough, but he had all the grace of a bull in a china shop. His method of fighting was to charge into a fray and count on his vampire instincts to lead him… but after seventy years his vampire instincts were a little rusty, so Caroline with her superior training and more finely honed instincts managed to pin him to the mats time and time again.

                “Are you sure you really want this?” Caroline asked him pulling him to his feet again.

                “Well, Blondie, you have me facing a challenge now. I can hardly return home with my tail between my legs, can I?” he wrapped an arm loosely around her shoulders and grinned down at her. “Besides, you need me around. Red over there is entirely too serious. She’ll have you losing all your Mystic Falls charm without someone to mitigate her influence.”

SHIELD

                It was pure luck, and a visit from Bruce Banner, that had them realizing where Enzo’s true talents lie.

                Caroline wasn’t even sure how it happened, as she had been in one of her own training sessions in which Clint Barton got to gleefully shoot arrows at her. She was still cursing him, because he’d shot one of his explosive arrows, and now she was pulling splinters out of her right side. She had wanted to return to her room and sleep the session off, but Natasha had contacted her, demanding that she come to the control room ASAP, and Caroline sighed, because if Natasha was demanding her presence then, that meant Enzo had done something. She swore that if he’d stolen Fury’s eye patch again she would kill him.

                She walked in, braced and ready for the worst and hoping for something marginally better.

                What she got was Enzo sitting next to Bruce at a monitor discussing variations on particle theory and how they could maximize the newest SHIELD weapons – known as Icers – for maximum, non-lethal effect using… well, the words were big and flew way above Caroline’s head. Her knowledge of Icers began and ended with how to use them.

                “What is he doing?” she asked Fury and Natasha, who were watching the pair from their position at a different monitor. Both wore their usual inscrutable looks, but these were different from the usual _why-did-you-bring-him-here_ inscrutable looks they usually wore when looking at Enzo. They looked, dare she say it, _impressed_.

                “He is keeping up with Banner in science-talk,” Natasha replied, glancing at Caroline as she joined them. “The only other person I’ve ever seen do that is Stark.”

                “When did you learn about particle theory?” Caroline asked Enzo, and he spared her a brief glance from the schematics he and Banner were pouring over.

                “I had to do something with my time when everyone was busy saving Elena and I really could care less. And if there was one thing I learned about in my captivity, it was science. I decided to stick with what was comfortable when I first expanded my knowledge of this century. I found it suited me.”

                “You brought us a god damn genius, Forbes,” Fury said, crossing his arms and shaking his head.

                “Have you introduced Enzo to your dad yet?” Bruce asked. “He has some interesting idea. I think he might be able to help make a suit that can run without the arc reactor.”

                Tony had managed to save himself, so he no longer needed the arc reactor to survive, but the downside to that was that it meant he no longer had an easy power source to power his Iron Man suits, putting Iron Man effectively out of the superhero business. He had been searching for a new way to power the suits, but none of his methods had been successful or practical.

                “Oh God,” Caroline muttered, imagining Enzo and her dad in the same room. The level of ego that would amass would be enough to drive anyone mad, and the thought made her pale.

                But… if Enzo _could_ help power the suits…

                “Well, Forbes, looks like you’re going on a road trip to New York.”

                Caroline muttered a curse as Fury made the declaration and glared at him.

                “With all due respect, Sir, you suck.”

                “With all due respect, Agent, I don’t care.”

                And across the room, Barton threw her a smirk that made Caroline bare her fangs and hiss at him.

SHIELD

                “I think I might love this guy,” Tony said to her when he broke away from Pepper, Bruce, and Enzo long enough to grab beer from the fridge for them. Caroline was chatting with Steve, who knew even less about science that Caroline did, and she rolled her eyes at Tony’s words.

                “You would,” she retorted. “He’s arrogant and has no shame. Basically he’s the less rich vampire you.”

                “I can hear you, Goldilocks!” Enzo called out.

                “I know,” Caroline called back. “That’s why I said it.”

                “But Fury said you brought Enzo on board,” Steve said, confusion written across his face. “Why did you bring him to SHIELD if you don’t like him?”

                “She likes him fine, Cap,” Tony said, sauntering away to rejoin the science brigade. “This is how she shows her affection. Haven’t you noticed?”

                Steve looked at Caroline with a raised brow, and she shrugged, taking another sip of her coke – after all, someone had to be the responsible adult, and apparently it wasn’t going to be Enzo. Or her dad.

                “It’s the only way to handle them,” Caroline told him sagely. “You can’t let them know if you feel amusement, or it makes them think their clever, so you have to handle them with carefully maintained disdain.”

                “And I can still hear you!”

                “And I still know that!” Caroline shook her head, and Enzo rolled his eyes at her before letting Tony and Bruce pull him back into the world of arc reactors and Iron Man suits and talk of compounds Caroline didn’t know or care about. Pepper gave the three of them an indulgent look before she left the group to join Caroline and Steve.

                “He’s charming,” she said to Caroline. “In the same way your dad is charming, but it’s still charming. Are the two of you dating?”

                “What?” Caroline choked on her coke, almost spitting it out. “No!”

                “Really?” Pepper looked almost disappointed at that. “Tony and I thought you might be. Even Liz thought it was possible. She said the two of you flirted a lot, and I think she’s worried about you. Have you been seeing anyone, since you broke up with your boyfriend. Tyler, was it?”

                “That’s been over for almost two years, and no, Pep, I haven’t been seeing anyone.” At least, not in the way Pepper meant. Caroline’s thoughts went to Klaus, Hybrid King of New Orleans and the last guy she’d done anything more than flirt with. She had seen him once, a few months previous, when she’d gone on a mission with Natasha. That visit had marked the end of them, before they’d ever begun. At least, that’s what she constantly told herself.

                Then, as her thoughts usually did whenever they touched on Klaus, her mind turned to Loki, the Norse God of Lies, who was really just an alien that enjoyed trying to take over the world. As far as anyone else in the room knew, Loki was dead, but Caroline knew better. He was a constant thorn in her side, never doing anything problematic to the world, but always ensuring that Caroline never forgot about him. She had a box in her closet full of the notes and baubles he had left her, each one kept to be carefully inspected, in case it could someday be used against him.

                No, Caroline didn’t have any interest in dating, not with those two still haunting her mind. She had enough boy drama with the men she _wasn’t_ dating, without tossing in an actual boyfriend.

                “You’re young, Care. I know you’re determined to be the next Natasha Romanov, but that doesn’t mean you should cut yourself off from romance. Even the Black Widow has her romantic interludes.”

                Pepper meant Barton, of course, although no one really knew what Nat and Barton were to each other. Partners? Dating? Loyal friends? Caroline imagined it was a combination of all three, but Nat hadn’t pushed her when they’d left New Orleans, and so Caroline wouldn’t push her about her history with Barton.

                “Don’t worry, Pep, I’m not cutting myself off from romance,” Caroline lied with a bright smile and an easy laugh. “I’m just not actively looking. It will happen when it happens.”

                Pepper seemed to buy it, and she fell into easy conversation with Steve about his plans for the weekend, but Enzo looked back from his work with Bruce and Tony, and his expression said he wasn’t buying it.

                Caroline stared him down for a few minutes, then turned away, determined to ignore his probing look.

SHIELD

                “You lied to your father’s girl,” Enzo said later, when Caroline pulled into her parking space at her apartment. It was too late to bother going back to the Helicarrier, and she had a spare room, so she had decided they would spend the night at home.

                “I lie to lots of people. It’s good to practice, for SHIELD purposes,” Caroline retorted as they waited on the elevator.

                “What I don’t get is why you would lie about such a thing,” Enzo continued, as though Caroline hadn’t spoken. “Why not just tell her you have no interest in a boyfriend right now? That romance isn’t something you want… unless, of course, the lie was that you _do_ have a boyfriend. In which case, why not tell them? Would they not approve?”

                “You don’t know anything,” Caroline replied when they reached her door, unlocking it and letting Enzo enter. “I _don’t_ have a boyfriend, I just didn’t want to go into the conversation about why my parents worry that I don’t have one.”

                “Are you sure about that?” Enzo replied, stopping suddenly in the doorway to the kitchen, making Caroline run into his back. “Because it looks like someone may not agree.”

                “What do you – oh for fuck’s sake!” Caroline burst out, shouldering past Enzo and charging to her kitchen counter. There, sitting in the middle, was a chain made out of a gold metal that Caroline _knew_ wasn’t of Earth, imbedded with precious gems she knew no human jeweler would be able to identify. As if to prove her suspicions, a note written in Loki’s neat cursive sat beneath it.

                _I heard about your new partner. I thought it wise to remind you of_ me _. –L_

“Who is L, and why is he sending you necklaces that must cost a small fortune.”

                “None of your business!” Caroline snapped, shoving the necklace into her pocket and grabbing a lighter to burn the note.

                “I think it is, Caroline,” Enzo replied. “Look, in case you’ve forgotten, we are _partners_. Now, maybe I’m not as good at the fighting side of things as you are – I’ve head words like prodigy tossed about when people talk about you – but I still take this seriously. I _like_ working for SHIELD. I feel like we’re doing something important. And I know that you do as well… so what aren’t you telling them?”

                “I haven’t even told Natasha about this. Why would I tell you?”

                “Because we’re _partners_! Natasha might be our S.O., but she is not the one we’ll be going through the door with. We have to be able to trust each other. So try it.”

                Caroline knew Enzo was right. It was part of the reason she had been so setback when Fury had declared Enzo would be her partner. Because it meant she couldn’t just think of herself anymore, that she couldn’t simply concentrate on her training and her issues with Loki.

                It meant she had to have someone else’s back, and trust them to have hers.

                “Okay. If we’re going to be partners, then you have to have my back, Enzo. You can’t tell anyone else what I’m going to tell you. Not Fury, not my dad, not Natasha. No one.”

                “Is Blondie going against protocol?” Enzo asked with a smirk. “How naughty.”

                “Be serious!”

                “Of course. Apologies. Consider me serious.”

                Caroline sighed and tapped her fingers on the counter, before deciding to just blurt it. Quick and painless, like a bandaid.

                “L is Loki.”

                A beat of silence.

                “I’m sorry, but I swore you just said L is _Loki_. I read his file. Alien of Asgard, almost destroyed New York, _dead_. Yet you received a gift from him… a talented man, for the deceased.”

                “He’s not dead. He’s a trickster… and what you wouldn’t have read in the file is that he is what started all of this for me. He kidnapped me, before the invasion of New York. Kept on talking about my potential and making me a queen. I helped beat him, but I realized he was right. I had been wasting my potential in Mystic Falls. So, I joined SHIELD. That’s why I work so hard, because I won’t be wasted potential anymore. And he still haunts me, he gives me these little gifts and makes sure he’s always on my mind.”

                “When Damon told me you liked accents, I didn’t know he meant _alien_ accents.”

                “He didn’t,” Caroline replied, feeling a flush. “He doesn’t know about any of this. He doesn’t know about Loki or SHIELD or that I’m Tony Stark’s daughter. The accent thing referred to… someone else.”

                “Well then” – Enzo walked around Caroline and opened her cabinets until he finally managed to retrieve a full bottle of tequila and two shot glasses – “we’re going to drink, Gorgeous. And you’re going to tell me everything. And I’ll tell you everything. And anything said here? It stays here.”

                “Fine,” Caroline replied, accepting a shot. “I slept with the guy who killed my ex’s mother – and I knew he did it before I slept with him.”

                She tossed back the shock and looked at Enzo.

                “I fell in semi-love with one of the women who held me in captivity.”

                He tossed back his own shot.

                And that’s how they continued, each telling the other a secret, until the tequila and half a bottle of scotch was gone and they were both sprawled on the floor of the den staring at the roof.

                “So, you want to take out Loki. That’s your end game.”

                “It is,” Caroline agreed, poking her cheek, because it had started to go numb from all the alcohol.

                “You can’t do it alone. I’ve read up on Asgard. They have science that makes ours look weak… you’ll need to know about it, about his magic.”

                “I know,” Caroline agreed again. “And what is life, even, that I have to worry about a guy’s magic? I remember a time when all I had to do was rip out a heart or break a neck, because my opponent was capable of _teleporting_.”

                “It makes life more interesting,” Enzo mused. “You know, magic is just science that can’t be explained. I read that somewhere.”

                “That’s deep, Enzo.”

                “I know, but it also has a point… you’re the perky blonde angel of death, capable of killing a man at fifty feet. Or with your thighs, which is oddly hot, by the way.”

                “Thank-you,” Carolien replied. “Natasha taught me that maneuver. It’s pretty bad ass.”

                “It is, and I applaud the both of you for it. So, perky blonde angel of death… and I’m the geek. I know my science, it comes easy to me, and thanks to your equally amazing father, who I think I may be in love with, I am also going know my technology. So, what do you say you have some help in your quest against the Asgardian?”

                “Are you offering to help me go behind SHIELD’s back to take Loki down? Really?” Caroline rolled onto her stomach to look hopefully at Enzo.

                “I’m saying that Fury made us partners… and that SHIELD, and Loki, won’t know what hit them now that we are.”

                “Does this mean we should come up with a secret handshake?”

                “Yes,” Enzo agreed, his drunken wisdom deciding that seemed like a wonderful idea. “Yes, it does.”

SHIELD

                No one in SHIELD knew what had changed. One day, the duo had gone to meet with Stark, still often at odds and not really acting like partners, and the next they had magically decided that they were going to be the partners who put all other SHIELD agents to shame. It made Fury suspicious, of course, but he couldn’t exactly give Caroline and Enzo hell for deciding to do their jobs damn well.

                And so, the Angel of Death and the Techno Geek rapidly became the best new agents. Enzo still sucked at anything that didn’t require technology, physics or sheer brute strength, but Caroline excelled there, and so they went on successful mission after successful mission for six months until even Romanov admitted that she couldn’t teach them anything more. They were Agents of SHIELD in their own rights, and no longer needed adult supervision.

                It had been two and half years since the invasion of New York.

                The Angel of Death was ready to fly.

**Author's Note:**

> And thus concludes Caroline's training. Now we'll get into the meet of her pursuit of Loki... possibly in a multi-chapter story. I am undecided on that as of now.


End file.
